What De Niro is to squinting disbelief, or Jack Nicholson to a lascivious grin behind shades, Michael Shannon is to teetering on the edge of self-destruction. Whether playing a maniacally pious prohibition agent in Boardwalk Empire or a husband slowly cracking under apocalyptic visions in Take Shelter, Shannon is a doyen of coiled intensity, those unblinking eyes dilating with a kind of messianic fervour. They’re put to good use in Death by Lightning, Netflix’s handsome new four-part historical drama about two men the world forgot.
Shannon plays James A Garfield, the preacher, lawyer and civil war general who in 1881 reluctantly became the 20th US president. Opposite him, Matthew Macfadyen is Charles Guiteau, the misfit who shot him. Executive produced by Game of Thrones supremos David Benioff and DB Weiss, the series is confident in its skin, a slow-burner with the promise of a fierce flame. Too confident, perhaps. While it’s garnished throughout with nice visual touches, Death by Lightning is not without longueurs: the first episode, in particular, feels a little like sitting through a fusty lecture on the politics of the Gilded Age.
Not helping its cause is a script from Mike Makowsky that, on occasion, makes the whole thing feel like a belated PR exercise for America’s most unsung president. It’s history as rehabilitation. Watching it, I was reminded of HBO’s acclaimed miniseries John Adams. With its same trudge through the early Republic’s growing pains, and that same nagging feeling that we should really know more about its subject, Death by Lightning certainly has parallels with its forefather.
Vital to both, too, are the performances. Just as Paul Giamatti excelled as a cantankerous President Adams, so Shannon elevates the material, his Garfield all furrowed brow, principles and nobility. No volcanic rage this time. Which is surprising, really, given what happened to Garfield. Here was a kind, honest man who rose from humble beginnings to the highest office in the land, only to be struck down within a few months by an assassin’s bullet (and die of sepsis 80 days later). As the unhinged assailant, Macfadyen is riveting, finding a conduit to laughter in Guiteau’s unctuous sidling and wheedling. Squint, in fact, and you may be able to detect a faint whiff of Macfadyen’s Tom Wambsgans from Succession.
Balancing out any moments of drudgery further still is yet another excellent turn from Nick Offerman (The Last of Us), who plays the often apocalyptically drunk vice-president, Chester A Arthur, with a bumptious buffoonery. It’s his story arc that I found the most rewarding in a series that is based on a book called Destiny of the Republic. Its creators have suggested it’s a forgotten story that deserves our attention – highlighting the dangers of political violence, institutional failures, and how Garfield fought against corruption and sought to unite a divided nation. But period dramas about politics face as difficult a fight to “cut through” to a wider audience as politicians themselves. And despite its stellar performances, this one probably won’t convince swing voters.
